A Movable Feast

Big is sometimes better. For instance, South Florida has become home to the largest Hispanic theater festival in the United States, which this year will host eleven companies from seven other countries (Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Slovenia, and Spain). Almost all the companies have been presenting theater on an international level for more than ten years and have received major international awards for excellence in theater.

But when it comes to culture, size and superlatives don't tell the entire story. Take Calle Ocho, the nation's largest Hispanic street fair. After trudging through a Calle Ocho littered with coconut shells and El Presidente bottles, munching on an arepa, and wrapping oneself in a Puerto Rican or Colombian flag, any self-respecting culture-lover is tempted to ask, Y que? Is that all there is? Well, no. That's not all there is. Now in its 17th year, the International Hispanic Theatre Festival could easily be considered one of South Florida's best-kept cultural secrets but for the fact that we are the only ones keeping it so. The rest of the world has caught on.

Only two years ago, Mario Ernesto Sanchez, artistic director of Teatro Avante and of the festival, joked with New Times, "Imagine that. We're taking culture to New York." A year later, Sanchez, with his small staff, modest budget, and immeasurable passion for theater, made good on his promise. Produced by Arts International in association with Teatro Avante and 42nd Street Inc., five of the companies from the 2001 Hispanic festival in Miami traveled to New York and performed for sold-out audiences.

A review of the festival landed on the front page of the arts section of the New York Times. Apparently the only complaint from the folks in the Big Apple was that they wanted more. Critics from the Times and Village Voice lamented the festival's brevity. "This is a festival that should return every year and stay longer," critic D.J.R. Bruckner wrote in the Times. "It is a reminder of the deep traditions and long history of Latin American drama."

Did we need a reminder here in South Florida? Evidently so. After 17 years, Sanchez still laments the lack of participation from South Florida audiences, Anglo and Hispanic alike: "Sometimes, opening night feels like I'm having a birthday party. It's my mother, my aunt, my second cousin, and so on." Never mind that the festival played to packed audiences in New York. Perhaps it's this disparity that has helped fuel Sanchez's vision to take his show on the road. His dream is to produce a festival circuit beginning in South Florida and moving on to New York, Puerto Rico, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Albuquerque. "We spend so much time, effort, and money to bring companies from so far away," he says. "It's a waste not to share this world-class theater with other cities."

In fact, some of his dream cities have already jumped aboard, using the festival to enhance their own audience development and outreach projects. This year, miniversions of the festival will extend to Los Angeles and Albuquerque. "I had heard about the festival for a few years, but when I read the reviews in the New York Times, I gave Mario Ernesto a call to see about bringing the festival to L.A.," explains Martin Kagan, managing director of the 1241-seat Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood, California. "Mario has done an incredible job... finding the best in international Latino theater, and it's our hope to capitalize on his knowledge and expertise." In addition to L.A., Albuquerque has plans to participate annually. Sanchez has also received confirmation for next year from Atlanta and New York, with San Antonio in the works.

One of the festival's long-time objectives has been to make it accessible for old and young, Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences alike. Unlike American theater, which is dialogue-driven and largely realist, Latin American theater constructs its symbolism from movement, physicality, and gesture, thereby making it comprehensible to non-Spanish speakers. To make it even easier, this year, five plays, two dance companies, and three works for children will be accompanied by opera-style supertitles in English.

Sanchez has also chosen to bring a contemporary adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca's La Casa de Bernarda Alba in English with Spanish supertitles. For those who find language in general an aesthetic nuisance, the Slovenian company Mladinsko Theatre,which has played all over Europe and Latin America to critical acclaim, will make its American debut at this year's festival with Silence Silence Silence, a play without speech, sound, or music that explores the possibility of silence as a method of communication when words lose their magic power.

All of this "outreach," however, could be wasted on apathetic South Floridians.

How can it be that the largest and most accomplished Hispanic theater festival in the nation has trouble filling seats here but sells out in other cities? Let's take this as a challenge: South Floridians, get out of your cars, put your cell phones on mute, and trust your own eyes, ears, and heart for a few hours. Unlike IMAX, the Internet, and cellular headsets, theater is live and alive. The International Hispanic Theatre Festivalwill be sensual, visionary, and humorous, something those around us already know -- and something we need to find out.

Here are some highlights to help:

This year, the festival will open and close with two of Spain's most renowned companies,Teatro del Templeand Compania Marta Carrasco. Temple's Buñuel, Lorca, y Dalí has won several awards for acting, set design, and direction since its debut in 2000. It explores the art and friendship of the three most influential Spanish artists of the 20th Century, with the Spanish Civil War as a backdrop. Together with the Florida Dance Association, Catalan choreographer Marta Carrasco will present the dance-theater piece Mira'm: Se Dicen Tantas Cosas at the Colony Theatre (1040 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach), which is part of Second Thursdays and free to the public.

Santa Cecilia:Una Ceremonia para una Actriz Desesperada: Speaking from her tomb at the bottom of the sea, Cecilia looks for meaning in her life and her death. Audiences can witness a special performance by Vivian Acosta, one of Cuba's most highly respected actresses, for whom the role was originally written.

Besides the Pia Fraus Company's Bichos do Brasil ("Critters from Brazil"), two local companies will present three works especially for children but entertaining for all ages. Miami's Teatro Avante will debut an original work (with English supertitles), The Fair of Discoveries, cowritten by Avante's Lilliam Vega and Cuba-based scholar/playwright Raquel Carrió. Four minstrels tell the story of Galileo Galilei, the famous mathematician, physicist, and astronomer whose discoveries clashed with the accepted beliefs of his day but eventually transformed the medieval view of the world in favor of new, modernist principles. As Carrió explains, "The Fair of Discoveries is a game of knowledge, a dialogue that is also a metaphorical journey into imagination and memory."

Prometeo Community Theatreof Miami-Dade Community College's Wolfson Campus (300 NE Second Ave., Miami) has gathered some of the city's most talented artists to produce a liberal adaptation of La Farsa Maravillosa del Gato con Botas. The play retains the most fundamental element of children's theater -- a love for the fantastic -- and combines it with poetry, farce, and puppetry. Celebrated Cuban artist Ramon Alejandro has created the wardrobe and set design; the original musical score is by Alfredo Triff.

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